


Not-So-Social Drinker

by Wallwalker



Category: The Quiet Earth (1985)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Character Study, Community: obscurefandom, Gen, Pre-Canon, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-09
Updated: 2010-02-09
Packaged: 2017-10-07 03:36:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wallwalker/pseuds/Wallwalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zac didn't know why he ended up in pubs so often; it wasn't as if he cared for them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not-So-Social Drinker

**Author's Note:**

> Character study I wrote for [obscurefandom @ LJ.](http://community.livejournal.com/obscurefandom)

Zac didn't see what was so appealing about pubs in general, really. He'd told Perrin as much on more than one occasion, every time the other scientist decided to take him out for a drink after work. Not that Perrin had ever listened to him; he'd laugh it off, or say that Zac only thought that way because he drank alone too much. Wasn't healthy to drink alone, he'd say. The company would do him good.

Easy for him to say. When Perrin was drunk he was cheerful and jovial, cracking jokes and flirting with any pretty young ladies who happened to be about - sometimes with the wrong young ladies, but he was usually able to talk his way out of those situations with a bit of well-placed flattery. Zac just seemed to sink deeper into his usual melancholy, his mind shrinking and closing in on itself so much that he barely noticed the outside world. He had enough to worry about without looking at the rest of humanity; his entire mind was a pit of endless worries, and if he didn't give them due attention they would spill over into his sleep, or his work - not into his life, since if he was to be brutally honest he would have to say that he didn't have much of a life, outside of those other two things. When he drank alone, he was doing a great favour for all of the people that he wasn't drinking with.

Still, he knew that he wasn't going to convince convince Perrin of that. He had to wonder why the man tried so hard to be friendly with him, even when they disagreed on everything. He supposed that even when he was sober Perrin was the sort who had to be everyone's friend, and so he continued to pop into Zac's office when their shift at the lab was over and drag him out to the pub just about every night. Zac never argued too strenuously; it didn't seem worth it. He'd just go along with it, have a couple of drinks, wake up the next morning and show up at the lab to find Perrin conspicuously tardy.

Even now, when they'd just started working on this new Project Flashlight, Perrin was already talking about going on a trip to London after it was done. He was going to take Zac with him, he said, two bachelors out for a good time, visiting some of the best pubs in the world. And Zac would nod and make what he hoped was a fair attempt at a smile, smile, only half-listening to Perrin, knowing that he'd probably end up utterly hung over in a rented room and in need of a vacation after that vacation, and Perrin likely wouldn't even notice.

Besides, they were starting to receive data transmissions for the new project, and Zac was having trouble making them fit together; there seemed to be pieces missing, things that were being lost in the transmissions from America. He was the one who was going to have to sort all of that out, after all. That was enough to have on his mind.


End file.
